


if grey’s anatomy can do it, so can i

by starblessed



Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Office, Banter, Elevators, F/M, Getting Back Together, Post-Break Up, Sloppy Makeouts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 02:10:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14178252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starblessed/pseuds/starblessed
Summary: He is the last person she wants to be stuck in an elevator. For one foolishly optimistic moment, Anya is sure she’ll be able to ignore him. Of course, her ex has never had that much tact — or he just likes to torture her.“Wow.” Dmitry gives a low whistle that plucks at every single one of Anya’s nerves. “What storm drain did you fall into?”“The one you live in,” Anya retorts, without looking back at him.(Or, an office AU in which Anya is definitely not in love with her ex-boyfriend, and the elevator in this building is really, really slow.)





	if grey’s anatomy can do it, so can i

They’re both shrieking as they rush into the building from outside. The glass doors swing shut behind them, cutting off the roar of the torrential downpour behind them. For a moment, all Anya and her sister can do is stand there, breathing hard and dripping all over the lobby carpet.

Her hair is stringy and soaked, glued to her face. Anya feels a drop of rain rush down her brow, already warmed by the heat of her skin; it drips onto her lips, and she licks it away. When she turns to look at Maria, her exhilaration morphs into a grimace. Her sister is in no better shape than she is, round face flushed and bun now a disheveled mess. She’s hunched over, chest heaving. As soon as she recovers her breath, she turns a glower on Anya.

 _“‘No, Mashka, we_ don’t _need an umbrella, we’ll be_ fine.’”

Maria raises her eyebrows. Anya can only wince.

“Sooo, I was wrong? Turns out rain was in the forecast after all. Oops. Who has time to listen to weather reports, anyways?”

Maria rolls her eyes, and flips a strand of wet hair out of her eyes. She still looks put-together and professional in a way Anya wishes she could manage; then again, Maria wears the office-standard jacket and skirt better than she ever could. “You’re the one who gets to explain to Lily why we’re late,” her sister retorts, and Anya can only wince at the thought of what their boss’s reaction will be to them walking into the office like two drowned rats.

“We’re not _late,”_ she mutters, shaking water out of her hair as she lifts her phone up to check the time. “It’s only ten minutes after ni— oh _no.”_

“Yes,” Maria hisses, and takes off running again. This time, Anya is the one sprinting after her.

They make it to the elevator just as the doors are starting to close. If their mad stampede didn’t attract the entire building’s attention, Anya’s hollering and waving hands would. For a second she is sure that they’re not going to make it, that the doors will close in their faces, and she’ll have to explain to Lily why they’re even _more_ late… and then.

Then a hand jams itself though the closing doors, just in time to force them open again.

Anya knows who their savior is, even before the doors open to reveal him. She is all too familiar with those rough knuckles, tanned skin, and work-worn nails. A consequence of becoming too intimate with a person’a hands is that you’re never able to forget them.

In her opinion, Dmitry Sudayev has remarkably memorable hands.

The elevator is already crowded. Anya comforts herself with the fact that they’re not the only ones late, rather than focusing on the elephant in the lift. Vlad is leaning against the wall, studying his reflection in the mirrored ceiling. Old Leopold is scrutinizing something on his phone, probably one of his countless social media pages. In the corner, Gleb is just… lurking. He does that a lot. (Anya prefers him lurking in a crowded elevator, rather than by the coffee maker, while she’s all alone.)

And, of course, there’s one other person in the elevator — exactly who she doesn’t want to see.

She refuses to look at him, refuses to even utter a thanks for his quick reflexes. She will not focus on how good he looks in his suit and tie (though he looks good every day, hitting just the right note between professional and disheveled to keep Lily from throwing him out the fifth story office window). Even the feeling of his body at her back, when the closing doors force Anya to step into his space, she is determined to ignore.

Of course, her ex has never had that much tact — or he just likes to torture her.

“Wow.” Dmitry gives a low whistle that plucks at every single one of Anya’s nerves. “What storm drain did you two fall into?”

“The one you live in,” Anya retorts, before Maria can even say a word. She doesn’t look back at him.

The fact that she’s close enough that she can feel his low hum reverberate in his chest is really the worst thing about all of this. “Morning, Anya,” he huffs. “You’re in as great a mood as always.”

“We got caught in the rain, Dima,” Maria says gently. “Have mercy on us.”

(Her sister still calls her ex-fiancé _Dima,_ because of course she does. Her entire family loves Dmitry — save maybe her mother, but she was getting there. As if it isn’t bad enough that Anya has to see him every single day since things fell apart, to work four cubicles down from him no less, her sister still helps herself to the nickname she is no longer allowed. Every time she hears those sweet syllables leave someone else’s lips — the name that used to be property of the two of them alone — Anya chokes on her own bitterness.)

“Didn’t you bring an umbrella?”

 _“Someone_ thought we wouldn’t need one.”

Dmitry hums. “Figures.”

She has to resist the urge to spin around and glare at him, because she _knows_ he’s thinking of all the times she ran out of their apartment without an umbrella. Does it give him some perverse pleasure to know that hasn’t changed, even if she has moved back in with her sister? Or is that one of the little quirks about her that e couldn’t stand, and is relieved to no longer have to deal with?

She hates him. _Good god,_ she _hates_ him, and if it was socially acceptable to punch someone in the middle of a crowded elevator, she would.

If he would just shut up, everything would be so much easier — but of course, he can’t, because his mouth is three times the size of his brain. “You know, weather reports exist for a reason.”

“We were already running late,” Anya grits out. “I didn’t have the time.”

“Being late cant be blamed on anything else — only on some _one.”_

“Yeah, you. You’re late too, genius!”

“I didn’t make you late this morning!”

“Ohhh, sure,” Anya drawls, finally reeling around to face him. “Not _this_ morning.”

She ignores Maria’s dismayed squeak from behind him, Gleb’s groan, or Vlad hitting the elevator button three times as if just that could urge it to go faster. She doesn’t care about any of them. All she can focus on is Dmitry, still a whole head and shoulders taller than her, glowering down with that infuriating devil-may-care diffidence that once made her want to kiss him until she could knock it off his face…

Now, she can only look at him, and think how infuriating he is.

Was it really possible that she once held affection for this man? Did she really want to spend the rest of her _life_ with him?

“Careful,” replies Dmitry, dropping his voice low. “I seem to recall no complaints from you on _any_ of those mornings.”

“Here we go,” Gleb mutters.

Vlad slams his hand against the doors, desperate. Leopold buries his face in his phone.

“Please, I haven’t eaten breakfast yet,” Maria groans.

Anya leans closer, standing on her toes just to stare him in his smug, smirking, _stupid_ face. She hopes he can feel her breath; hopes that every inch of this proximity makes him feel like he’s on fire and want to crawl out of his skin, as much as it does for her. All she wants is the ability to torture him half as much as he tortures her.

“If you really think,” she begins, “that I _ever_ enjoyed your morning breath or feeling your freezing cold hands when I was trying to sleep because you _kept me up_ all night _snoring_ –”

The elevators chimes. The doors slide open.

“Oh, thank god,” Vlad exclaims, and bolts.

In just a second, the elevator empties; it is a mass exodus. People can’t get away from them fast enough.

It’s enough time for Anya’s brain to catch up with her body. She realizes just how close she is to Dmitry. She can feel his breath, see the individual hairs in his brows, and the flecks of auburn in his dark eyes. They are too close, and she doesn’t want to pull away.

Dmitry isn’t moving back either. They’re both paralyzed.

Maria winds up being the one to break the spell, with a determined tug on Anya’s arm. Anya jolts from the force, tilting sideways, and only just manages to regain her balance. Once she does, the tension of the moment has been broken. Dmitry blinks, like a man waking from a trance, and slips out the elevator doors a second later.

Anya is left gaping after him, feeling like she’s just lost something crucial.

“Come on,” Maria huffs, rolling her eyes. “Lily’s going to throttle us already. You want her to accuse you of being indecent in the elevators again, too?”

Anya is too stunned, and too flustered, to do more than protest as her sister steers her away. When she tries to catch another glimpse of Dmitry, she realizes he has already vanished into his cubicle and out of sight.

She lost him… again. It seems like this is becoming a habit, and she’s got no clue how to break it.

* * *

It’s not until lunch break – well after they’ve both been thoroughly chewed out by Lily, dried their hair under the handdryer in the Ladies’ Room, and miraculously managed to get a bit of work done – that Maria says the one thing Anya hasn’t been allowing herself to think.

“It just sucks,” her sister says around a mouthful of apple tart. “You and Dmitry are both still in love with each other, but neither of you will admit it.”

Anya’s mouth drops open. She reels back fast enough that her spinny chair goes wild, and she reels in a full circle before she catches herself and faces Maria once more. Then she lurches forward, quick enough that Maria leans back to keep from getting headbutted.

“How _dare_ you say that?”

Tranquil as ever, Maria just shrugs. “I’m telling the truth. Maybe you’re split up, but you’re still in love.”

This is the last thing she wants to hear – mostly because she’s chewed the same thoughts over in her own head so many times that they make her stomach churn by now. Anya snorts. “What do you know about love? You’re a hopeless romantic.”

Maria’s blue eyes dance. “Maybe that just means I know more about romance than you do.”

“You’ve never even kissed anyone.”

She shrugs. “I’m getting there.”

Anya rolls her eyes. Forcing herself to be callous is difficult, but it’s infinitely better than the alternative. She could not stand to let her sister know how much her words affected her. It might be the truth – maybe she is still in love with Dmitry – but that’s not a truth she’s ready to face today. Or ever. She’d be perfectly happy never confronting it until the day she dies.

“Don’t bother,” she huffs, and reached over to steal one of her sister’s potato chips. “Men are pains in the ass. Every last one of them.”

From the cubicle next to them, Vlad gives an offended huff. Anya ignores him.

* * *

She’s really starting to think that working here is more trouble than it’s worth.  
  
It seems like common sense — don’t work alongside your ex-fiancé. Then again, it should be just as logical not to date your coworkers in the first place, and Anya threw _that_ out the window. If she hadn’t walked into the office on that first day and wound up shadowing the world’s most insufferable man as he showed her the ropes... well, her world would be inconceivably different.  
  
She doesn’t know who she’d be if she never met Dmitry. She has no idea where she would have ended up.  
  
(Where would she be if it hadn’t been for that night when all that they were fell apart?)  
  
If it weren’t for Maria, she would have quit her job long ago; but she could not stomach the thought of leaving her poor sister all by herself. Maria has never done well alone, and Anya feels a sort of protectiveness, having worked her for longer than she has.  
  
At the moment, however, she thinks she’d be glad to leave Maria to the pack of rabid dogs that are their coworkers. She’d be more than happy to throw down her suit and tie, run off, and never step foot in this damned office again — just so she wouldn’t have to see _his_ face.  
  
When Maria said she was staying for a few extra hours to get paperwork done, she should have known; her sister never works overtime if she can help it. If that didn’t tip her off, she should have realized when she was waiting for the elevator alongside Gleb, and Lily suddenly called him into her office for something “very important”.  
  
Anya doesn’t realize she is being set up, however, until she is already in the elevator, watching the doors close, when  Dmitry suddenly ducks inside before they could shut entirely.  
  
“Hey!” Anya can’t help letting out a yelp of alarm. There’s a certain violation in this — she was alone, and suddenly she is not, and he is standing opposite her in the empty elevator. (They’re all alone. They haven’t been alone since they ended things.)  
  
Dmitry’s eyes are wide. He looks just as shocked by the situation as she is.  
  
“I didn’t realize —“ he says; and then, after a huff of breath, “I thought the elevator was empty.”  
  
She was standing right in front of the doors. “Am I invisible to you now?”  
  
“Of course not.” He rolls his eyes, and she can’t stand it. He’s always so good at dismissing her, as if every word out of her mouth is something ridiculous, and she _hates_ it. She loves him for the moments he makes her feel like everything she is matters, but hates that he can turn on the flip of a dime.  
  
He’s not perfect. He never has been. They drive each other crazy.  
  
The worst part is how much she loves it.  
  
She does still love him, and she despises herself for it. The knowledge is constantly burning in her chest, a sun that refuses to die. Slowly, it is consuming her. Every day she comes into work and is forced to see her, the inferno grows hotter and bigger. If she does not confront it, then it will destroy her.  
  
She takes a few bold steps forward, until she is almost chest-to-chest with him. His brows furrow; he blinks down at her, almost suspiciously, as if he wants to take a step back but can’t force himself to do it.  
  
“Why do you always have to do that? Why do you have to contradict me?”  
  
“Why do you make everything so personal?” he retorts. Anya feels that fire flare up in her chest, so hot that it burns her lungs and throat, burns up everything inside of her.  
  
“Because I can’t do anything else when it comes to you!”  
  
She reaches up and seizes his arm. Every one of her instincts screams that this is dangerous, but she cannot stop herself. She _can’t_ stop. (God, they never should have wound up alone together...)  
  
“Sometimes I’m sure that I hate you, because I can’t get rid of you. Wherever I go, whatever I think, you’re there. When I turn around, I’m walking in your shadow. When I breathe, I’m breathing you. I can’t escape you, and I can’t stand it, and you make me feel... feel _everything._ Why do you _do_ that?”  
  
For a moment, Dmitry says nothing. The silence stretches between them, agonizing. Anya can hear each pound of her heart in her chest, like the beating of distant drums.  
  
“Sorry to inconvenience you,” he finally mutters. His head shakes, slow and uncertain, like he can’t believe the words leaving his own lips. (Anya knows the feeling.) “Sometimes I’m sure I hate you too.”  
  
Anya blinks at him. His hand settles on her shoulder, thumb just caressing her collarbone. “But no matter what,” he says, “I know that I don’t.”  
  
For one second, she allows herself to relish the feeling of his hand on her skin. Those hands, those rough palms that she knows and loves, those dark eyes and wicked smirk... everything about Dmitry. She soaks it all in, and revels in him.  
  
Then she lurches forward, and her lips meet his.  
  
It is magnetic, intense and impossible — everything they’re always meant to be. The moment Anya’s mouth connects with his, Dmitry stumbles back, arms flying up to catch her. He braces her weight as his back hits the elevator doors, and she presses him against the cool metal as she pushes further. His lips are so pliant, devoid of any of the fight she’d expect from him. He’s not just willing, he’s eager for this. He needs it as much as she does.  
  
When she feels him kiss back, fireworks explode in her head. The floor drops out under her. They are the only two people that exist.  
  
“Anya,” he groans against her lips, only for the space of a breath. Then she closes the distance once more, and there is nothing capable of coming between them.  
  
Except the ding of the elevator, and the doors shifting against Dmitry’s back.  
  
Anya springs away like she’s been electrocuted. Dmitry is left behind, nearly falling out of the elevator as the doors push open wide. His face is flushed, hair an immaculate mess. His eyes have gone wide and wild, as if he’s struggling to remember where he is.  
  
The lobby is silent behind him. Anya’s pulse is thrumming in her ears. She can’t think, can’t breathe. The absence of her engagement ring burns on her finger.  
  
“Oh god,” he murmurs. _“Anya...”_  
  
“Don’t say anything,” she cuts him off, and takes a step forward again. When her hand lands on his shoulder, he doesn’t pull away.  
  
She knows him like the back of her hand, which is why she knows he still has the ring — probably tucked beneath his socks in the back of his drawer, with all the other things he can’t stand thinking about but refuses to throw away. He’s still got the ring she threw in his face... and she still has him.  
  
(Somehow. Even if she doesn’t deserve him, she knows for a fact that she wants him. Maybe, for some inconceivable reason, he wants her too.)  
  
For now, though, they’ll start slow — something they’ve never been good at.  
  
“What do you say to coffee?” she says. “We can... talk.”  
  
Slowly, as if this is the most novel idea in the world, Dmitry nods his head.  
  
Even if they don’t settle their differences tonight, Anya knows that they’ve got a lot of time to do it. After all, she’s just going to see Dmitry tomorrow... and the next day, and the next.  
  
Maybe there’s something to this job after all.

**Author's Note:**

> The next week, the elevator was fixed. Next time they tried to make out in the elevator, they reached their floor in five seconds and Lily almost fired both of them on the spot.
> 
> And yes, they do get back together.


End file.
